David Axelrod compares embattled Douglas Alexander to Barack Obama

Labour's shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, who is battling to cling on to his Paisley and Renfrewshire South seat, has been compared to Barack Obama by the man who was instrumental to the President's two election victories.

David Axelrod who served as a senior adviser to Obama and is now working as a consultant for the Labour party penned an article in Scotland's Daily Record praising his former boss and explained why he was inspired to work for him:

To make a difference to their lives not just as a community organiser, or even a senator but as president of the United States. The most powerful politician in the world has his values rooted in those neighbourhoods in Chicago.

He added:

The best politicians take the local and make it national. They make the concerns and the values of their ­neighbourhoods the concerns and values of the nation. That’s why I admire Douglas Alexander.

Alexander is in bitter battle to try and halt the advance of the SNP. The last Ashcroft poll conducted in the Labour heavyweight's seat showed Alexander trailing the SNP by 11 points on 39 per cent.

Axelrod has been something of a controversial hire in Labour circles. On the one hand, many were happy to land a top notch political strategist who could sprinkle some of the Obama stardust on Labour's General Election campaign.

But others have questioned whether spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on an American strategist who may not have the experience or expertise to advise correctly and analyse a UK campaign.

Labour aren't the only ones to look overseas for political counsel. The Tories hired another veteran of the Obama campaign Jim Messina as well as Australian Lynton Crosby, who ran the 2005 Tory campaign and Boris Johnson's 2008 Mayoral campaign. The Lib Dems appointed South African Ryan Coetzee as director of strategy.